So I've finally gotten around to watching The Name of the Rose. I noticed the abby had a huge culdron of blood (Which someone got drowned in later). What was that for?

M.

Various forms of Black pudding probabaly http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_pudding Given the food situation in the period you used every eddible piece of slaughtered animals including the blood.

Food has already been mentioned so I'm just throwing this out there:

Could it be for ink, dye or paint? A pretty big part of the story involved the monks working on manuscripts, presumably bibles.

In this particular instance, simply refer to the book of the same name by Umberto Eco:

"Outside the pigpens, swineherds were stirring a great jarful of the blood of the freshly slaughtered pigs, to keep it from coagulating. If it was stirred properly and promptly, it would remain liquid for the next few days, thanks to the cold climate, and then they would make blood puddings from it."

Apart from the obvious use as a foodstuff, does blood have any uses in the tanning or treatment of leather perhaps? The making of dyes?

BTW some of the finest Black Puddings in the world come from a town called Bury which is only a few minutes drive from me.

I read somewhere that Blacksmiths used blood to harden the steel and put in water... I don't know that's true...

Blood sausage(still is in parts of Europe) was popular as well and would keep for far longer.

Blood (ox or cattle, usually) was often part of the "recipe" for interior building finishes. It was used as an elasticizing agent, if I recall correctly, mostly for beaten earth floors and, more rarely, for wall plaster. If you get the ratio of lime, manure, chopped straw (as a binder), clean earth, and ox blood correct, it can be tamped into a monolithic floor that wears like concrete, is fairly waterproof, and (amazingly) doesn't attract vermin. Supposedly. I've never knowingly seen one, but I have read that there are floors of this kind in England that date to the sixteenth century, and see fairly heavy tourist traffic daily with little upkeep.

Blodpudding! I eat it allot, because it's have good taste and is cheap, all you need to it is sugar or Lingonberry jam :D
and No, it don't make you to a viking or something. :lol:

pic from wiki
[ Linked Image ]

My grandfather used at least once blood to decorate a scabbard.
He was making a scabbard for a knife (puukko), when he accidentally cut himself. The scabbard was spilled on blood, and he couldn't get it of, so he decided to "paint" even coat of his own blood to that scabbard and applied varnish after that. I believe I have that scabbard somewhere.

Here in Italy there is the "Sanguinaccio" a sausage of dried blood who was very popular some times ago. I don't know if was produced in the middle age, but it cheap and very simple to produce, so I think yes. It has a very strong flavour, and for this and hygenic reasons it isn't as diffuse as a some time ago.

Patrik, I've eaten some nasty, nasty things in my life but that takes the cake.

...I shall have to try it some time.

M.

Well here in Quebec there is " Boudin ", or blood sausage:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boudin